Internet marketing is the most challenging form of marketing because “strategy” is no more than a disposable item; we create internet marketing plans that are only good for 3-6 months. If print marketing dominates for over 400 years, and pre-digital marketing (telemarketing, TV, and Radio Ads) reigned for 50 years, the digital marketing landscape is changing year after year.

The truth is, no strategy in online marketing can withstand with these changes. And an online marketing manager should be responsive enough to keep his strategies into context.

What is an Online Marketing Manager?

An online marketing manager formulates internet marketing strategies, designates tasks to co-workers, and makes sure that the online campaign plan is efficiently implemented to deliver desired work output and results to the client.

He or she identifies the needs of the business to effectively reach its target market. When discovering marketing opportunities for the business, an online marketing manager must focus on leading drive qualified traffic to the website and acquire leads and sales.

Who Are the Ones Being Managed by Online Marketing Manager?

An online marketing manager will orchestrate the following aspects of integrated internet marketing:

SEO – making sure that the business website is search-engine friendly and important keyword-based pages have higher chances of ranking on the first page of search engine results.

PPC & SEM – making sure that the campaign is bidding the right keywords on search engine paid advertising that will generates leads and sales.

Social Media – making sure that the brand has reached the target market on major social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

Content Publishing – making sure that contents being published can be considered useful for the target customers.

Link Building – making sure that links are visible from other authority websites, niche-related online communities and forums, and other relevant link networks.

Email Marketing – making sure that the subscription list is constantly growing with potential customers, and that every marketing message has reached accurately to the subscribers’ email.

What an Online Marketing Manager Monitors?

An online marketing manager is not satisfied with the number of traffic a website garners every month. He must see to it that qualified traffic is flowing in and out of the business website and nurture qualified leads. So, he or she deals with studying how traffic can be converted into sales through the following:

Analytics – dealing with visitor profiles and behavior then discover marketing recipe for the modification of the digital marketing campaign.

Conversion Optimization – putting the right elements on a particular page wherein a potential customer can hit call-to-action buttons.

Public Relations (PR) – delivering the right message to the public for any business updates and keeping target customers regularly posted.

Online Lead Generation – deals with combining sales knowledge with website usability testing and strategy to attract website visitors, and eventually, convert them as buyers.

Usability – ensures implementation of website design and development are aiming towards a great user-experience for visitors while on the website.

Local Optimization – building local reputation of the business even in online terms and help target customers find the business location should they want to visit the business and see for themselves personally.

Mobile Optimization – dealing with great website experience for mobile device users and making sure that the business website is compatible across different device screens.

So, What Roles Online Marketing Manager Can Play?

An online marketing manager can play as jack of all trades, and still the master of some. How cool is that? Just a quick thought, though, an online marketing manager can take the role of the following:

Account Manager – handling all official online accounts of the business – for SEO, PPC, Social Media, Email Marketing, etc. – and coordinates tasks, harmoniously.

Quality Assurance (QA) Supervisor – checks contents and work output to be at least within the standard of what has been expected in the digital marketing strategy implementation.

Digital Marketing Strategist – formulates contextual strategies with higher chances of reaching the goals and objectives of marketing a business online.

The Path of an Online Marketing Manager is Being Shaped by Challenges

With the changing online marketing landscape, the path of an online marketing manager may not be a straight and easy one. Sometimes, it can bend, drift, or even turn around. But experience and decision-making skills based on accurate information can help him cope with these challenges to bring forth success to the business he is representing.

Here’s a quick list of what might shape the perspective and decision of an online marketing manager is devising an online marketing strategies:

Real-time marketing is in, campaign is out. Campaign can be strategic but passive, while direct engagement can be so active and can easily keep up the pace.

Marketing department will be dissolved; integrated online marketing will eventually come up. What does this mean? Every department in a business can have important impact in designing the internet marketing strategy – more like a collaborative cross-department marketing approach.

Get acquainted with real visitors. This would mean discouraging visitors generated from spams and even competitors who would likely just steal your contents.

More on revenue-minded marketing. Key performance indicators (KPI) should be changed and making revenue as primary indicator.

Integrated social media marketing. Target customers should know the official social media profiles so they can still be connected whether they are on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.

Everything is getting mobile. Just as the website should have a mobile version, every aspect of online marketing should also be compatible in mobile platforms.

SEO and social media should go hand in hand – supporting each other to achieve the common goal of generating sales for the business.

Inbound internet marketing can be the future. Amidst the days of information pollution, customers more likely find brands they love.

Crunching data for business health. Data can flow in and out of every internet marketing process, and could go bigger and bigger. Data needs to be carefully analyzed and be distributed to the right department that actually needs them.

Go for “SMART” contents. Gone are the days of keyword-based contents hoping to fit to the loopholes of search engine algorithms. “Smart contents” are what your target customers need, not bunch of craps and thin contents.

Business is becoming more personified. Just as branding represents the reputation of a business, other aspects of internet marketing should aim to mimic how direct marketing agents do marketing to their target customers.

Email marketing needs to be re-marketed. Email marketing suffers as unsolicited emails became rampant. But if it will be re-design to people that will actually need the product being endorsed in the email message, then email marketing is still a big in!

Get ready for marketing technologies. Tools and devises can change from time to time and some marketing styles might become obsolete giving rise to the new ones. So, brace yourself to an online marketing roller-coaster ride!

Encourage your visitors to leave comments and reviews. Their opinions can provide rooms for improvement and at the same time generates genuine user-generated contents that search engines love.

Marketing “Gamification” is fun! Making your marketing more like a game kills the boredom of your target customers. This will make them come back and buy some more.

Graphics/Images can simplify the marketing message. Who can deny that a picture paints a thousand words?

Make your contents timely. Contents should always be updated so it can still be relevant from time to time.

Outbound Vs Inbound Internet Marketing – who will have the last laugh? Although outbound marketing proves to be the primary tool in the past, inbound marketing is getting more popular because customers find it not annoying – if you know what I mean.

Finally … a perfectly clear explanation of what an "online marketing manager" does for his/her clients! Thanks, James, for clarifying and putting all the pieces together in a way that someone from the outside can understand.